WHEN retired naval commander Nick Crews wrote a scathing letter to his three children, whom he regards as a "bitter disappointment", he hoped it would set them straight and force them to look in the mirror.

But yesterday the former nuclear submarine captain, 67, got an unequivocal broadside back.

After the publication of his father's heartfelt tirade - a no-punches-pulled salvo accusing his public school-educated children of failing in their careers and marriages - Mr Crews's son Fred, 35, replied: "sorry, but you made me."

Speaking as he prepared for his shift at a taxi office, Fred, bare-chested and sporting a stomach tattoo, said his father could no longer treat him "like a sailor in his command".

And he added his father had done "enough of that in my formative years to ensure that I do not have the confidence to succeed in life now".

He accused Mr Crews of acting like his own father before him, and insisted he would not speak to him again without an apology.

The family feud burst into the public domain when Nick Crews published the email at the request of daughter Emily Crews-Montes, 40 - one of his targets - who now lives in France and works as a translator for a publisher.

In his email, addressed to "Dear All Three', Mr Crews spoke of the "bitter disappointment" he felt at the "miserable death throes of the fourth of your collective marriages", his children's inability to pursue fulfilling careers based on public school educations, and the fact none of them was "properly self-supporting".

He said his six "beautiful" grandchildren had parents who lacked maturity and sound judgment "as each of you consciously, and with eyes wide open, crashes from one cock-up to the next".

Witheringly, he added that for he and his wife Sarah, "it makes us weak that so many of these events are copulation-driven, and then helplessly to see these lovely little people being so woefully let down by you, their parents".

Yesterday Nick Crews told The Mail on Sunday he had "nothing to apologise for" and that many friends facing similar challenges had emailed him messages of support.

Earlier, Fred, clearly furious that the row had gone public – through an article in yesterday's Daily Mail – said: "I'm not going to dignify him with a full response.

"He knows what the score is. I've spoken to my Mum and I responded to his email. I likened him to his own father and left it at that. He said what he wanted to say but there are other things he shouldn't have said.

"He said he didn't want any of us to contact him again until we had some good news. Well, if he wants us to talk to him now, then he shouldn't have written that. That's what needs to be apologised for."

Speaking from the Plymouth terraced house where he is living with his sister Alice, Fred insisted his father had only himself to blame.

"He compared us to his friends' children and said what an embarrassment we were and how he can't boast about us," he said. "Well, I'm sorry, but you made me. That also needs to be apologised for."

But perhaps something of his father's sense of duty has rubbed off on Fred after all, as he insisted he was unable to stay and provide a full interview as he could not let his employer down.

"My father made me who I am today and I think he did a good job," he said. "I do not leech off him, my mother or society - except for a brief stint on Job Seekers' Allowance - nor am I a criminal of any sort. I try to keep to the values I have been brought up with."

Nearby, at the family's detached, six-bedroomed house in a Plymouth suburb, an unrepentant Nick Crews made a robust defence of the decision to set out his frustrations in the email, sent earlier this year.

And his wife Sarah made clear she backed every word.

"Absolutely, it needed saying," she insisted. "An email was the right way to go because they absolutely took notice of something there in black and white."

Mr Crews said: "What I was saying to my children was that if they got their ducks in a row, their children would be getting a better start. As a father and a grandfather, don't you have a duty to do that? I think you do. I don't like living with the repercussions of this and it makes you very sad that your children hate you. But life is hard.

"There are people in society who desperately need financial support and for that support to be sucked up by people, my children, who could do better is not acceptable to me.

"My message to other parents who feel as I do is that you have a social responsibility to say your piece. I can remember my father saying things to me that I didn't like to hear. Friends have emailed me to say, 'I've had to write a letter like that and it's not nice.' They have been very supportive.

"If you had one child like this you'd think, 'Do I say anything?' But I've had three out of three and you wonder whether you're an appalling father with defective genes. It's not just one of them that's had a failed marriage – it's three out of three."

Read Nick Crews' letter in full

Dear All ThreeWith last evening's crop of whinges and tidings of more rotten news for which you seem to treat your mother like a cess-pit, I feel it is time to come off my perch. We are seeing the miserable death throes of the fourth of your collective marriages at the same time we see the advent of a fifth... Having done our best to provide for our children, we naturally hoped to see them provide happy and stable homes for their own children.Fulfilling careers based on your educations would have helped – but as yet none of you is what I would term properly self-supporting.So we witness the introduction to this life of six beautiful children none of whose parents have had the maturity to make a reasonable fist at making essential threshold decisions.The predictable result has been a decade of deep unhappiness over the fates of our grandchildren. If it wasn't for them, Mum and I would not be too concerned, as each of you crashes from one cock-up to the next. It makes us weak that so many of these events are copulation-driven and then to see these lovely little people being so woefully let down by you.I can now tell you that I for one have had enough of being forced to live through the never-ending bad dream of our children's domestic ineptitudes.I want to hear no more from any of you until you have a success or an achievement to tell me about.If you think I have been unfair in what I have said, by all means try to persuade me to change my mind. But you won't do it by simply whingeing. If that isn't possible then I rest my case.I am bitterly, bitterly disappointed. Dad

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Comments on this story

ELLE Posted at 6:33 PM November 20, 2012

If you have one of your children fail and disappoint you,then that may be bad luck.To have all three of your children fail and disappoint you,then it is time for you the parent to look at yourself and see what responsibility you have for how they grew up and how they are living their lives.Children are what they learn( bad parent/ good parent)then those same children grow into adults.

Andy of Melbourne Posted at 6:30 PM November 20, 2012

What a complete failure of a father. Disgraceful and obviously has some pretty poor morals. No wonder his kids hate him, who wouldn't. Maybe his kids are happy in their own careers, if thats the case they are no failures. The father sure is.

Brian of NSW Posted at 6:28 PM November 20, 2012

I am only 37 , but I give this guy credit on saying it how it is. All I see around me is dysfunctional adults who collectively have the maturity less than a primary school, even within my own family.
Time to grow up and face truths that are hard, it can only make you a better person.
I just hope that I never have to write this kind of letter to my kids, I am hoping my guidance is leading them to a responsible life, but I will if I have to.
We need more of these parents in society , but unfortunately its probably too late for this guys kids.

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